This is the last thing anyone was expecting, but it looks like a new shiny tower is coming to the Williamsburg waterfront, the site of one of its more troubled developments, in fact. In a bit of a coup, Douglaston Development will build a 40-story rental tower, according to The Journal, and while they have spent years struggling to sell their Edge development, the tower is actually being built next door, on the third North Side Pier site, which had been the provenance of Toll Brothers.
FX Fowle is still the architect, and the same development partners are involved, L&M Development Partners and RD Management LLC, but the other big change is rentals, instead of condos. While both the Edge and Northside Piers have begun to sell briskly this year, there is still some sense that is not where the market is. “The rental market in Williamsburg is through the roof,” Douglaston’s Jeff Levine told The Journal. Indeed, Ed Westwick has taken up in Mr. Levine’s Edge, paying $7,000 to rent a two-bedroom there.
One bedrooms at the new tower will cost around $3,000 per month, according to The Journal. Judging from a previous rendering of the project, it looks like the design of the tower has been tweaked, as well. At 40-stories, it will be the tallest thing in North Brooklyn, surpassing the 30-story buildings next door. And so Miami-on-East-River continues to grow.
The $300 million project is expected to begin construction starting in March.
That is partly what is surprising about this project, because the going word is that projects are shrinking, that nobody has the stomach for these huge projects. Toll told The Journal as much in explaining its decision to abandon the project. “The Williamsburg market is strong, but for most of us developers, it’s not a place where we were making a lot of money,” Toll’s New York honcho David Von Spreckelsen said. “There’s so much product, competing for price against each other.”
